TRAFFICKING

THE General Secretary of the Christian Council of Ghana, Rev. Dr Fred Deegbe, has described the state of some children in the country and their way of life in some communities as an abomination.
Speaking at the launch of a documentary titled “Reach Out to the Trafficked Child”, under the “Fight Against Child Trafficking (FACT) programme of the Christian Council of Ghana in Accra yesterday, Rev. Deegbe said child trafficking in Ghana was one of the many challenges facing the country.
He indicated that children were trafficked from places he called “sending communities”, to other areas that were “receiving communities,” which were primarily along the coastal areas of the country to engage in fishing.
He said child trafficking and the engagement of children in hard labour such as fishing and farming was a challenge facing the whole of the West African region.
He mentioned, for instance, a settlement in The Gambia called the “Ghana village”, where Ghanaian children were primarily trafficked and camped from Mankessim in the Central Region.
Some Ghanaian children also ended up in Nigeria to engage in all forms of hard labour.
Rev. Deegbe said the documentary was an advocacy tool to assist in getting the relevant agencies in the implementation of the Human Trafficking Law and the promotion of the rights of the children in Ghana.
"Ghanaians are good at signing papers, documents and treaties, but when it comes to implementing them, we are found wanting,” he said.
The Human Rights Project Manager of the Christian Council of Ghana, Mrs Joyce Larko Steiner, said child trafficking was a serious form of slavery that people did not have to take lightly.
“Perpetrators of the act have to be made to face the law,” she said.
She said in ‘receiving communities’, there were sometimes a network of masters who were against any initiatives to protect the rights of children working there.
The documentary is a 30-minute production that tells the story of children trafficked, and the reasons for the phenomenon in the country.
It showed the lives of the children in communities in the Dangbe West and Ga West districts, where they are trafficked to and the types of labour they are engaged in.
Children from three years are trafficked from ‘sending communities’ such as Ekumfi Sraafa in the Central Region, communities in the Dangbe West District of the Greater Accra Region as well as the Western Region and some parts of the Volta Region to work in ‘receiving communities’ along the Volta Lake, like Lala near Kete Krachi.
The documentary also shows parents explaining why they sold their children, most times for just GH¢50 to strangers.
Three or more siblings were sold at a time out of poverty.
In the receiving communities, the documentary showed how the children worked from dusk to dawn at great risk.
A 14-year-old boy, who trafficked to work in a fishing community, had his left eye bloodied when he dived into the lake to untangle a net and was pricked in the eye by a tree stump.
A six-year-old boy was shown with a sharp curve on his back when his back hit the edge of a canoe while fishing.
The Director of Programmes and Administration of the CCG, Mrs Ruby Dagadu, appealed to the media to support in the advocacy programme and help protect the rights of children without exposing them.